Longwall Mining
In the fall of 2000, the Raymond Proffitt Foundation engaged the services of Terri Taylor, an astute and talented reporter and documentary producer from Pittsburgh. We wanted Terri to document the "before" and "after" of surface damage from longwall mining in southwestern Pennsylvania. Terri has kept me informed of her work via numerous email messages, and they serve as a valuable narration of what has been going on.
While we wanted Terri to document, when possible, adverse effects to natural resources from mining, we also wanted her to record other damage. Last fall, Terri was at the home of Dianne and Roy Brendel, 30-year residents of the Thralls House, a restored home on the National Register of Historic Places. More recently, Terri was at the home of Laurine and Murray Williams, residents of Kent Farm, a 150-year-old restored farmhouse also on the National Register of Historic Places. The Williams' have lived at Kent Farm for 24 years.
Longwall mining does not leave pillars of coal in place to support the surface, so even though the mining takes place 500 feet underground, the land can subside 4-5 feet, roughly the thickness of the removed coal. The following PU primarily consists of excerpts of messages and notes from Terri, along with some pertinent news articles. Clarifying comments have been kept to a minimum and are in brackets. We hope her words will give you at least a small sense of what the Brendels and Williams must endure because coal companies choose to extract coal using a method that is very destructive to surface features. (A full description of the effects of longwall mining on streams and wetlands can be found in the RPF report 'Wetlands and Longwall Mining, Regulatory Failure in Southwestern Pennsylvania' available on our website.)
11/13 First phone call to Roy and Dianne Brendel. Their engineer's report says the stucco and stone Spanish-style home will be destroyed. There are huge stained glass windows and glass block window walls; one-of-a-kind floor tile "rugs" and ornate built-in decorations everywhere. The Thralls House is also full of antiques, which all have to be packed away, not to mention 30 years of family memories. I could hear in Roy's voice how heartsick he and Dianne are over what's about to happen to their eccentric hacienda. They never believed that an historic register home could be undermined; but the longwall machine is heading for them and it now appears inevitable. "You'd better get down here right away," Roy told me. "Or you'll never get to see the place like it was."
11/15 We did get some footage of the stream, using various rocks as level markers. This was not very scientific, but if the stream (Robert's Run) goes entirely, there will certainly be a comparison to be made. Apparently, Consol workers knocked out an enormous (and beloved) beaver dam on the property in order to take "before" water flow measurements. We also filmed a bulldozer and trucks taking down maybe a dozen large trees on a hillside which is part of the 9-acres in the historic designation -- this for a "D" vent (to encourage potentially explosive methane gas to escape the mine with the aid of a huge compressor). I am told it will make noise all the time. It was pretty horrific...We also saw (and filmed in a snow squall) a steam shovel and other heavy equipment digging a trench around the guesthouse (also historic) and filling it with straw bales. (The technique of "trenching" around a house theoretically allows it to subside in one piece, instead of in many pieces). The main house has already been trenched and wooden cribs have been erected in the basement and garage to hold up the first floor. Dianne Brendel... was preparing to take down all the drapes. A restoration expert hired by Consol was supposed to take out a massive mirror (probably eight feet tall in an intricately carved frame) while we were there, but he didn't show up. Dianne is a hostage in the house - afraid to leave - and Roy (a school guidance counselor) has to work - he has used up most of his vacation time already. The stained glass windows are already gone, as are the mammoth oak doors with glass panels - replaced with plexiglass and wood. In general, the workers are very polite and disappear when the camera goes on. As Roy says, "They're the nicest people who ever wrecked your house." There are two huge trailers on the property full of the Brendel's possessions and Roy and Dianne can't find anything. Today crib walls go up inside the house - confining the family to basically three small rooms and an upstairs bedroom for the next eight months... Honestly, the place looks destroyed already and they haven't even started.... we cannot predict when it would be most important to be there with any certainty. We will know in the next few days how fast the machines are moving as they go under Dianne's mother's house up on the ridge. It's approximately 80-feet per day and there are about 200-feet between the two homes. They were supposed to be underneath the mother's house on the 16th (tomorrow). That would put the Brendels at 15-degrees tomorrow and directly underneath as early as the 19th or 20th. The experience of many people who have been undermined is that the worst of the damage occurs five days after the machines have been directly under the house. That would be as early as the next Thursday, the 23rd, which happens to be Thanksgiving. A further complication is geological. There is a sandstone ledge that could create some problems in the vicinity of the house and slow the process down...
(The Thralls House was undermined on Thanksgiving night, and the damage began immediately.)
11/28 … keeping close tabs and down there today. place is crumbling. huge cracks, nothing square - like a fun house. floors tilting, kitchen door taken off 14 times so far. heard pinging noise and window panes cracked - like etching glass sound. tremendous pressure on one side of the house. Consol is quick to shore up everything and especially quick to keep away from the cameras... Spanish tile window ledge lifted while we were there and cracks widen all the time - somehow slow and fast at the same time… the change in the topography occurs like an ocean wave - it's not a steady drop. one corner of the house has fallen 13-inches so far and a nearby hillside has dropped 33-inches, so the house is expected to go at least that far - that is, at least some of it. I'm beginning to fear for their safety. but they are very valiant and committed to staying in their home.
12/02... going down to the Brendels Sunday to... take a look at the latest damage. apparently the longwall machine stopped for some reason and has not yet gone under their guest house (a rental) which is also on the historic register. there is worry that when it gets back underway there'll be another series of shocks. perhaps the machine just needed maintenance, perhaps it hit rock, nobody knows.
12/25 The Brendels house is decorated for the holidays with exterior cribbing, orange construction fencing and heavy machinery. A sign out front reads: "All we got for Christmas was a lump of coal." The split rail fence is jutting out towards the road at a 45-degree angle and there are big humps all over the yard. The whole place looks like it was dropped from the sky and hit the ground hard. … The well and creek are dry, but the hayfield has turned into a wetland. The small den where the Brendels must spend most of their time, is so bowed and the floor so tilted that it's hard to move around in. Pieces of the house are offset from the main structure in chunks,the main staircase is pulling away from the wall, and in places you can see straight through cracks in the foundation to the outside.
Roy Brendel: "It would be more humane if they'd just say, 'Hey, folks, we're sorry, but we wrecked your house and it can't be fixed.' But they're still showing up with cheery faces saying everything will be okay. I know in my heart it's destroyed, but they're going to make us go through this charade with lawyers and court cases for the next several years, I guess."
Dianne Brendel: "Even with the Magna Carta, the King couldn't go into a peasant's house… But the coal company can. Figure that one out~… I just don't understand how taking one thing out of the ground can be allowed to affect the entire environment."
[In February, Terri went to the Williams'.]
2/06 [Negotiations between the Williams and RAG, the coal company] postponed our trip to see them yesterday - they were expecting a RAG photographer, an archaeologist to conduct a dig and an electrician to rewire their house for electric heat.
2/18 We are hoping to film with the Williams' on Tuesday - although there are a lot of last minute shenanigans with... RAG refusing to sign the 106 Memorandum of Agreement [dealing with the protection of historic properties]. Surprise! Surprise! Another cliffhanger!
3/09 Here are a few "baby" turtle images from Kent Farm. Their shells were no more than an inch-and-a half across and there were three of them completely encased in dirt/mud when they were dug up -- so it would be hard to say if they had bright orange/yellow/red markings behind their eyes. The folks doing the archaeological dig put them back where they found them and may remember more - and of course there is a record of what square of the dig they came out of -- although this is precisely the area which has now been trenched. [If the turtles had been endangered bog turtles, it might have been possible to stop the undermining.]
3/13...Here are the turtle pictures. Guess he's not our boy [ID: pond turtles].
3/13 "Citizen group fights mining law" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headline.
A citizens' group is filing a lawsuit saying that the law gives too much power to coal companies, power that even the government does have through eminent domain.
" 'I think the case [the citizens group] is trying to make is without merit,' said Thomas Hoffman, a spokesman for Consol Energy, which last month applied for a permit revision to expand its Eighty Four Mine by 7,204 acres and undermine Interstate 79 in four places. 'It would surprise me if a court would find Act 54 unconstitutional given that it expands citizen rights.'"
http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010313mining4.asp
[Here's how DEP summarized the changes to Act 54 in their 1999 report:
"The primary changes enacted by Act 54 included:
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/bmr/act54/sec1.htm
Note the last two bulleted statements and figure for yourself how Act 54 "expands citizen rights."]
3/17 Now, we're into the Williams family and Kent Farm. Today, the pond started tilting and is pouring into the community picnic area for Laurel Run Road. Laurel Run itself is overflowing... a few days ago there was nothing in it from the damage after Panel No. 4 went through last summer. (We're on Panel No. 5 now.) Anyway, for some reason the longwall machine has stopped underneath the pond and the house won't now be undermined until Tuesday or Wednesday (March 20-21), although the damage is beginning. Looks like they [the Williams] will sign a private agreement with RAG today or tomorrow... the OSM [U.S. Office of Surface Mining, the Federal agency with oversight responsibilities over PA DEP] was simply too late and ineffectual. Meanwhile, down the road, the Brendels report that they're struggling to keep their humor intact... due to incessant inconvenience and continual crumbling and twisting of the Thralls House [the Brendel's home, also on the National Register of Historic Places, was undermined in November]. Roy told me this evening that Dianne's spring form cake pan took more than an hour to find in the dark in the storage trailer in the rain in box #84 and it had somehow gotten bent out of shape and so her cheesecake spilled all over the oven and then caught on fire and smoked-up the house and... well, it doesn't seem like much in the scheme of things... but it's the kind of nickel-and-dime stuff that causes those less stable to [snap].
3/18 Anyway, our footage looks as gloomy as the depressions caused in the aftermath of longwall mining. The pond in front of the Williams's place is... destroyed - - tilting badly towards one corner and the overflow pipe seems to have pulled apart underground and I would say hundreds of gallons per minute are pouring through the pipe's channel into a community picnic area. Just the tops of the picnic tables are sticking up out of three feet of water - sort of like an absurd Tiki bar, Greene County-style. I don't know that there's any way to save the dormant fish - mostly bass and bluegill. The pond sits immediately in front of the Kent Farmhouse. The whole scene looks not unlike a bombing aftermath - with huge anthills of dirt and yellow caution tapes and orange fencing and heavy machinery. The longwall machine is stopped 400' directly under what used to be the center of the pond (now it's the pond's edge and the ducks are poking around in the mud). RAG won't say for sure when they're going to start up again - there's either a mechanical breakdown or RAG is waiting for the Williams' to sign off on an agreement which circumvents the 106 process.
3/21 Kent Farm undermining now expected on Saturday-Sunday. Longwall machinery is stopped 200-feet from the house and undergoing a maintenance check, as it just wouldn't do to break down underneath the house. Too many people are watching.Yesterday, RAG/DEP dug out the breastwork of the dam and repaired the hole through which the pond drained. Supposedly it will now fill up again -- luckily it seems just enough water stayed behind to keep the fish alive... I should mention that two other ponds were lost just up the road --- and nothing's being done about them. Point being, what happens at Kent Farm has to look like the coal company can fix everything.
3/24 "Coal to be mined under Kent house Sunday" Observer-Reporter (Washington, PA) headline.
The article paraphrased RAG spokesman Mike Rounds as saying the house could drop as much as 4.7 feet. He was quoted later in the story as saying "Our confidence is high that all we'll be getting is cosmetic damage."
http://www.observer-reporter.com/NEWS/20010324/g0.html
3/25 "Waynesburg Journal: A House is Braced for Underground Tunneling" New York Times headline.
The reporter visited the Williams' home as it was prepared for its undermining, and also the Brendels' home, which had been earlier undermined:
"'They're telling us our house will subside 4 feet 7 inches,' says Mrs. Williams, skeptical of such precision as she fears her place might be skewered far deeper or even topple. For she has seen the shattered wreck made of the house of her friend Diane Brendel, in another of the valleys here in the southwestern Pennsylvania fields where the coal mining never stops."
"The tension of the wait seems to resonate in the four steel cables and six nylon bracing lines that now gird the Williams' house. Over in Spraggs, 10 miles to the south, Mrs. Williams's friend Mrs. Brendel can only pray the extra measures work better than the more routine steps taken by another mining company."'The longwall came through here last Thanksgiving night,' Mrs. Brendel said, fretful at the memory. 'My husband and I sat there listening to this unbelievable cracking and popping as it went under us,' she added, standing by what looked like a joist- braced shelter from the London blitz, her house scarred by jagged cracks, disrupted floors, deranged doorways and walls akilter. "Mrs. Brendel excoriated laws that protect mining rights sold a century ago, she said, before the burrowing of the longwall was ever imagined. 'It was an invasion of our haven, our resort, our safe place,' she said, near tears after 30 years' residency and left with a broken house and a court battle against the mining company.'And they use the word "mitigation,"' she said, finding bitterly Orwellian the legal term for a mining company's responsibility to protect overhead properties."The article concludes: "Most of the porch steps have been detached and the doors removed. Yellow caution tape and bright orange trench fences make the old house seem a surreal movie set.'It's right here, coming our way,' said Mr. Williams, glancing at the ground.His wife observed, 'Murray will be 80 in three years, the earliest this might be all over, and the sad part is what this is costing us in time lost from our lives.'Proudly, she surveyed the best of time's passage in the painstaking evidence of her restoration work. 'You think you've found a quiet, peaceful place to live but you don't really see what's happening,' she said as the longwall approached."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/national/25HOUS.html?ex=986524152&ei=1& en=1fd608864c45526c
3/27 Leaving for Kent Farm in a few minutes - Laurine called and said to bring a golf ball to show the tilt in the floor - Murray's are mitigated [possessions are removed from the house to avoid damage] into the shed! Apparently the front door offset overnight by nearly 2-inches - Laurine's "Command Post" in her library at the front of the house is giving her sea legs.
3/27 "Undermining causes several minor cracks at Kent farmhouse" Observer-Reporter (Washington, PA) headline.
"Several minor cracks appeared Monday in the basement and the first floor of the historic Thomas Kent Jr. farm in Franklin Township which was undermined on Sunday.
"The subsidence of the ground beneath the 150-year-old house, however, could take several days until it is completed."
http://www.observer-reporter.com/NEWS/20010327/ga.html
3/28 "Historic house tilting" Observer-Reporter (Washington, PA) headline.
"Cracks that were only hairline on Monday, a day after the mining, have expanded and begun to appear throughout the two-story brick farmhouse, most prominently in the front portion of the basement and first floor...
"RAG spokesman Mike Rounds said Tuesday that it could be a couple of days to a week before the ground beneath the house has stabilized.
"'At this point, this is pretty much what we expected,' he said of the cracks that have begun to appear throughout the house and the house's slight tilt. [Before mining, the same spokesman said that their confidence was high that only "cosmetic damage" would result.]
http://www.observer-reporter.com/NEWS/20010328/g0.html
3/30 "Destroying property" Observer-Reporter (Washington, PA) letter to the editor.
"The thing that's bothering me is the mining under people's homes. There's something wrong with such acts in a democratic country. It reminds me of things my grandfather told me of Nazi Germany and the Communist reign of East Germany."
4/3 "Study: Mining law addresses damage claims" Observer-Reporter (Washington, PA) headline.
"'It appears Act 54 (the state mining law) certainly provides the framework for these problems to be resolved,' said Ted Kopas, a DEP spokesman in Harrisburg.
"Property owners in the study area reported 678 cases of water impacts, 352 cases of structure damage and 188 cases of land problems, the study indicates.
"The DEP study involved 1,855 properties above mines in a 10-county area, including Washington and Greene counties, where coal is mined using the longwall method. Entire panels of coal are removed in longwall operations, causing almost immediate subsidence damage.
"The study indicates that longwall mines caused most of the damage in the surveyed area. Longwall mines damaged 523 properties, whereby mines that leave pillars to support the ground and prevent subsidence damaged 279 properties.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/NEWS/20010403/w0.html
4/13 Laurine Williams says she realizes now that it's going to take years to put Kent Farm right again. She fought the undermining with a stoicism and humour many marveled at; now in the aftermath, battle fatigue has at least temporarily gripped her. Laurine suggested a study into the emotional and physical costs of longwall mining on people, for example: How much blood pressure medicine do they need to buy as a result of the enormous stress? "Murray and I restored Kent Farm once already," she lamented. "We really didn't want to do it again." Mrs. Williams said she is frustrated with all the small meetings and sub-committees and different work groups of good citizens who want to stop longwall mining. "The DEP will take all the suggestions and print another report, while reminding everyone that the DEP's job is to enforce the law," she said. "Nothing will change until the laws do!"
Editor's closing note: The words here give you an idea of what two families went through as longwall mining disrupted their homes and lives. DEP's own report indicates damage to 523 properties from longwall mining and room and pillar mining damaging 279. The Brendels and Williams–people like you or me–are just two of those families. They put time, labor and love into their homes. They were not looking for trouble. It found them. They had their homes damaged and lives upset so that corporations–not humans--could exercise their "rights" to extract coal using the most profitable method.
It's hard to come up with a better close than did the author of the 3/30 letter to the Observer-Reporter:
"There's something wrong with such acts in a democratic country."